Week 3 - I'm learning to adapt

So I think I've officially been to every grocery store in Bahrain. I still find that exciting. Not too much happened this week. Still waiting to get my visa, hopefully on Thursday it will be ready. It's taken two weeks now. Ramadan is over, so I'll be discovering all Bahrain has to offer now.

Hotels: Last night I went to the Ritz Carlton but everyone was there partying for the end of Ramadan so we just looked around. The Trader Vic's restaurant there has tons of tropical drinks with semi decent food so hopefully next week I'll be able to discover that. Last night we ate at a wine bar in the Diplomatic Hotel downtown. It was delicious, we had shrimps with lemon oil, blue cheese gnocchi and tiramisu. The wine is expensive because only hotels serve alcohol, restaurants cannot serve alcoholic beverages.

Restaurants: The restaurants can't serve bacon because they don't eat pork here so I've been eating a lot of beef bacon, it tastes the same, but nothing beats real pork bacon. Coffee shops are big here. The mall has at least 5 different ones to chose from, which is nice that it's not always Starbucks. The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf is my favorite, their coffee will keep you up all night, but it's delicious. The fresh juices here are incredible, every restaurant has them on the menu: cherry, pineapple, strawberry, passion fruit, guava and even more that I haven't heard of. The only one I don't like is guava because it is very thick, it has the consistency of glue.

Produce: There's tons of new produce to discover, I need to figure out what to do with snake's guard and dragon fruit. The figs here are as big as my fist, they were a hit at my dinner party earlier this week. I discovered that goat cheese and feta cheese have the exact reverse texture as they do in the states. The Carrefour grocery store, which is my favorite, has a huge cheese bar with tons of different olives, all sorts of cheeses to chose from as well as fresh jams (strawberry, fig and apricot) all in this cheese bar. I can't wait to try the fig. I'm still trying to find out what to do with coconut powder. I guess you bake with it or use it in drinks, I'll figure it out. The spices here are inexpensive, I got 2 pounds of chili powder for about $1. They are sold fresh and in huge barrels (I have no idea what I'll do with that much chili powder).

Household Chores: Our landlord just got us a clothes dryer so now we don't have to air dry them in the sandy air outside or in the house. The clothes washers here are very different from the ones in the states. You have to fill up the washer with an outside hose, then let it wash. When that's done, you have to put the clothes in another tank to spin them, and then place them in the dryer. I have to swiffer the floor every other day because the sand gets inside the house everywhere.

Driving: I attempted driving to the 24 hour mart yesterday. I was so scared because the people here drive incredibly fast and people ride their bikes at night and you can't see them, but I did just fine. The roads here are not labeled, there are no street signs, so you give directions by landmarks.

More to come later.